Gaylord Palms: ICE! is melting away in parking lot

A frozen family experience hand-carved from nearly 2 million pounds of ice transformed into a frosty winter wonderland of interactive environments and larger-than-life, three-dimensional holiday scenes and sculptures, all hand-carved by a team of international artisans from Harbin, China. Returning are two-story ice slides and (brrrrr) 9-degree temps. Dress accordingly. 407-586-4-ICE (423) for more information.

Now that almost everyone is back into work mode, our holiday memories are fading. But the assorted ice sculptures are Gaylord Palms’ ICE! exhibit are melting away in the Kissimmee resort’s parking lot. Here are five things to know about the de-ICE-ing, told to me by Kevin Hudson, an associate producer with International Special Attractions Ltd., the California-based company that organizes the frozen elements of the seasonal event.

They don’t mess around: The attraction closed at 8:30 p.m. Sunday and by 11 p.m., the carpet was completely ripped out, so that three bulldozers could move in. It takes three equipment operators and 10 chainsaw-wielding Chinese artisans three or four days to get the ice chopped up and moved into the parking lot, then four or five days there to melt away. “The temperature is still 9 degrees in the tent. We keep it frozen during the process,” Hudson said.

Amped up ICE!: There was more ice in ICE! than ever before because a room was added to show the artisans in action. “We added about an additional 1,000 blocks in the tent,” he said.

The artisans who mow down the sculptures are some of the guys who made them: But the demolition doesn’t seem to bother them, Hudson said. “They’re OK with everything except for the nativity. They won’t destroy any of the three main characters of the nativity scene,” he says. “We gently remove them at their request.”

It’s a parking lot/it’s a photo op: “I get a lot of people stopping off Osceola Parkway just coming in and asking if they can take pictures of the melting ice,” Hudson says. Folks, especially hotel guests who attended the event get a kick out of watching it come apart.”

It could be worse. It is elsewhere: At the ICE! locations at Gaylord resorts in Washington, D.C., Nashville and Dallas, below-freezing temperatures are challenging. Not in (usually) sunny Florida. “We’re lucky in the sense that we can let Mother Nature take its course,” Hudson says.